What did I find the most disturbing thing when I left my childhood religion?

I think it was beyond how many children and women were molested in my childhood religion. It went far beyond that. at first I was upset by couples not married telling me that they were celibate when I knew this wasn't true.

But, then it got worse when friends started saying how they lied all the time to people in their religion about taking drugs like Marijuana, Mushrooms, LSD and stuff like this.

I think this last one was when I realized I couldn't be a part of this religion anymore.

The denial of sex when you are having it is one thing whether you are married or not. But, not telling people when you are using mind altering substances just took everything too far for me to be a part of this religion anymore.

I mean, People need to do what they need to do. I understand this. But, to lie about all these things and more within the context of ANY religion just shows how crazy many or most people really are. And I didn't want to be a part of all their lies within any religious context.

Because if they will lie about stuff like this, what else will the lie about that could be even more serious?

However, also remember this was 1969 which is a completely different era than now when Marijuana wasn't even legal then and all the other things could put you away for 20 years or more.

So, understanding just how serious all this was then cannot be overestimated.

Also, people used Marijuana and drugs because they couldn't deal with their high school classmates coming home in body bags every day from Viet Nam either. 

If you went to college instead of getting drafted and fighting and dying often in Viet Nam there was a tremendous feeling of guilt that the college people carried then even myself that we weren't forced to fight and die there too. 

Remember, 50,000 men and women died just in Viet Nam and then the rest returned with serious PTSD and killed themselves and their families for about 20 years or more after that. There are still PTSD soldiers living on the streets because they cannot safely interface with normal society still even here in 2025. Of course these soldiers are my age now somewhere between 70 and 80 years old.

Many movies of that era chronicle how bad and killing the PTSD was then from Viet Nam when soldiers returned home.